Jokarun
“If anyone tells you that he knows what the Jokarun’s intents are, he is either insane or a liar.” Proud and unyielding, the Jokarun are one of the oldest living races in the Andromeda Galaxy, gifted with glorious psychic power and long life as decreed by their masters. They are, however, a shattered people tittering on the brink of destruction, their populations scattered in massive roving fleets. Despite their sorry state, they are still unswerving in their desire for restoration and resurgence. If there was one trait about them that all must admire, it is that they will never surrender. Biology Category:SpeciesThe Jokarun are hyperintelligent creatures, with the lowliest of their ranks making the greatest geniuses of human history pale by comparison. They are also midly telepathic, being able to communicate with each other without speaking a single word. These avians are known for their smug sense of superiority, and they have many reasons for such a mindset; they are, after all, vastly more intelligent and cunning in their machinations than most races. While their generations are few and far between, they live very long lives, with each individual living at least 800 years free from illnesses and frailty. A select few amongst them exhibit powerful psychic abilities such as telekinesis, psychic lightning, enhanced reflexes, pyromancy, and psionic shields. These individuals are known as Sorcerors, and are some of the most well known warriors of the Jokarun. With the Ragon invasion and occupation of the old Jokari Republic, a new sub-species of Jokarun emerged. They were known as the Yahkuthein by their brethren, or the Defiled in the English tongue. They were bred to be docile, flightless, and were shorter than their brethren. However, they still possessed the same fearful intelligence as their kin, but centuries of passivity has made them weak willed compared to their headstrong brothers and sisters. Due to their extremely powerful psychic capabilities, Jokarun that die violently do not pass on to the next world, but rather, remain as echoes, which are essentially psychic essences that manifest in both real space and hyperspace. They are able to take control of machines and animate suits of armor, which led the Jokar Undivided to create mechanical exoskeletons designed especially for them. Background: History: It is unknown how the Jokarun came to be, but it has been theorized by the Kiellar (who encountered their moonship and had their entire scouting fleet present destroyed by mysterious graviton based weapons except for a single frigate out of seven) that the Jokarun were created as technological masterminds by the same race that created the Gnosara, a similarly ancient species of artificial intelligences. What the Jokarun themselves say are frankly closer to myth than fact. The records that survived the cataclysmic destruction wrought upon them by the Ragon Empire speak of gods coming down to the Jokari homeworld, bestowing upon them technology that could “grant every wish”. They, however, were content to live out lives of scholarly pursuit, seeking out knowledge as their fleets traversed the galaxy not to seed colonies, but to know every secret it can yield. Two hundred star systems lay in the grip of the Jokarun for 950,000 years, and the number never changed after the 1,000th year. The Jokarun are an extremely ancient species, dating back to the time when humans were still banging stones against other stones. These avians were genetically modified and nurtured by the Sahroni, an even older precursor race that forged the Gnosara and created the Ring World of Terrka. The Jokarun, alongside the Gnosara and Sahroni, fought a titanic war in the old days, fighting across the galaxy with world ending weapons that sucked entire suns dry and purged worlds of all life, titanic fleets, and endless legions of warriors and machines. This war was known as the First Galactic War, and the conflicts between the Ragon and Kiellar only come close to the scale of the FGW. The three fold alliance suffered an enormous defeat at the war's end, as the Sahroni were completely wiped out, the Gnosara barely survived, and the Jokarun managed to flee before their enemies could find them. They then negotiated a truce, and then a peace treaty. The war ended, and the blood of a million armies stopped flowing. From that day forward, the Jokarun abandoned the way of the warrior and pursued the path of the scholar. The highly advanced Jokarun enjoyed an automated, post scarcity society, where every member of their species was free to pursue knowledge, art, and passion. The Jokarun Republic was founded on the ashes of the Empire, and senators from every one of the 200 star systems of the Republic met on Jokar Prime to discuss matters of the state. The only war they fought in this period was the Six Day Skirmish, were the Jokari Navy wiped out the invading fleet, destroyed the enemy homeworlds, and sent them back to the Stone Age. The already pacifist Jokarun reacted with horror, and all military development ceased. When the Ragon struck, all they had were pitiful sector defense fleets. What resistance they offered was quickly swept away, and all but one of the two hundred systems fell in a month. Jokar Prime stood alone as the last jewel of a crown whose entire set of gemstones were taken and broken. The Ragon broke through the defences of the capital soon enough, but the entire system was burning. Not a single Jokari was left in the system, and every sea was boiled and the land were nothing more than wasteland. Every planet had its atmosphere stripped away, leaving only a ball of rock behind. The Ragon would detect something. It was a gigantic hyperspace signature, but it could not be tracked, and it was theorized that the Jokarun fled on a giant arkship. That was true. A century later, tales would reach both the Kiellar Command and the Ragon Empire that someone was disrupting trade near the Neutral Zone. It turned out that powerful vessels clad in vantablack armor often struck against both nation's convoys, sporting terrifying and bizarre weapons that included but were not limited to gravitonic shells, positronic beams, and magnetic accelerator cannons. It seemed that by consuming the Republic, the Ragon had awakened a dormant anger and fury. Survivors from the attacks reported avian warriors accompanied by humanoid war machines, sporting highly sophistixated weapons and armor, alongside individuals who seemed to wield psychic powers that included telekinetic abilities, psychic lightning, and enhanced reflexes. Furthermore, a resistance movement has sprung up in former Republic space, wielding the same warships of these mystery raiders though in lesser numbers. They called themselves the Rebellion of Restoration, and dedicated themselves to expelling the Ragon… with limited success so far. Later on, a small Kiellar scout fleet encountered the Jokari Moonship in the eastern fringes. The fleet was almost totally destroyed when dozens of Jokari Star Cruisers fired graviton cannons at them, destroying all but one of the seven frigates. By the time the Kiellar returned, the moonship was gone, leaving no trace of its existence behind. In AD 2026, the Gnosara invaded the Undying Light and occupied it within several weeks of fighting. Though 80% of the population escaped into deep space, the Jokarun have been fragmented, and the future of the species is uncertain. Culture The Jokarun of the present are a xenophobic and highly militarised people, as the traumatic events of the Ragon invasion has hardened their once soft pacifist hearts into cold stone, making the Jokari Untainted (the ones who were able to evade the Ragon) one of the most feared piratical forces within the Neutral Zones. They are divided into three main factions that are in practice all allied together under the Jokar Undivided: Refounders, Corsair Bands, and the Rebellion of Restoration, though the JU is usually used interchangeably with the Refounders. The denizens of the Undying Light, the Refounders, are extremely hostile to most outsiders, and will murder most foreigners that trespass into the Undying Light’s path. However, Corsairs and Rebels are far more amicable to alien races, as they are the ones who have regular with other species, and thus are more level headed than their sequestered brethren. It isn’t uncommon for Corsairs and Rebels to have alliances or friendships with members of other species, as exemplified by Kaleso Stralbane and Yare-Lokem. Within their society, the Jokarun are reportedly highly valuing to their brethren, even when the far wilder Corsairs board the Undying Light. Lamion Aonja, a Sarufi Fleet Master that was granted access to the Undying Light as per his fleet’s alliance with a Corsair band, recounts that: “The Jokarun love their people more than anything else, and consider most other races as barbarians below them. To them, the lives of a million Kiellar are worthless compared to that of one of theirs, and ten thousand Ragons are still less than a Jokarun’s life. They are sophisticated and highly advanced, yet they are arrogant and proud, believing that they are the one of the superior races of the galaxy even when they are one of its dying children. Few species have ever proven to be their equals in their own eyes, such as the Sarufi, Alseri, and the Dhasath. They are stubborn in friendship and unforgiving towards atrocities, only resting when vengeance has been exacted. The hatred that boils within their hearts are as strong as theur love for their nation, or whatever is left of it. Truly, these people have gone through much, and they will ensure that it never happens again.” When Jokarun greet each other, they rub each other’s foreheads, and say, “Jiasak. (Peace)” They used to have a culture focused on scholarly work, but with the Republic’s fall, it has shifted towards a culture of war, with artificers building warbots along farming machines and psykers focusing more on the arts of destruction than that of art itself. It is said that if the Jokarun did not rescind their militaristic culture after the First Galactic War ended, they would have become one of the top powers of the galaxy. Obviously, this did not happen. Jokarun have closely knit family units, with siblings being usually psychically bonded, which allowed them to feel each other’s thoughts and emotions over a significant distance. Technology The Jokarun are one of the most advanced species in the entire galaxy, incorporating their psychic power with their technology to make a tech base that can be best described as magi-tech in some ways. The souls of their dead speak to the pilots of warships and walkers, guiding their actions with the wisdom of the dead. They have even built mechanical exoskeletons specially designed for the Jokarun Transcended, a subspecies that are in actuality psychic echoes that maintain consciousness in real space; humans can aptly call them “ghosts”. They have and still do have a fully automated society, leaving its members free to pursue art, science, or the arts of war. Robots outnumber the Jokarun themselves by one hundred to one. They are, however, not known for decadence; their religious devotion forbids this, and as a race still reeling from the war they lost, they have no time for any foolishness. However, the hallmark of their technology is their powerful arsenal, which they used to level the playing field despite their greatly inferior numbers. Their most fearsome and infamous shipborne weapons are the Graviton torpedoes or the zar’koulat, which detonate into gravity fields that crushes matter within the blast radius. Armor is all but useless against it, and energy shields offer the best protection against this weapon. Their more common weapons are spinal magnetic accelerator cannons, which launch shells made from platinum at extreme speeds, as well as the exotic particle lance, which are their most commonly used capital ship guns. Their warriors are usually armed with plasma blades, coupled with exotic particle blaster rifles that are far more penetrative than that of their rivals. It could be said that anything the lesser races do, they do better... except for breeding. Subspecies Other than the mainstream Jokari species, there are three distinct subspecies under it. Transcended (Aorathein) Known only as “wandering souls” by the Kiellar, the Transcended were Jokarun that died extremely violent deaths, such as being eaten alive, tortured to death, and other gruesome methods. The anguish produced by their experiences supercharges their already heightened consciousness, and upon death, produces a “mist” of psychic energy that bears the consciousness of the Jokari that died. Due to the nature of their creation, they are extremely violent, angry, and bitter, but they calm down over centuries. They are, however, capable of inhabiting robots and machines, making them highly effective combatants. Defiled (Yahkuthein) The Defiled are the inbred genetic products of a century of Ragon dabbling with the highly complex Jokari genome. They are shorter, flightless, much more passive, and incapable of using psychic power, but have higher body mass than their unmodified counterparts. The Ragon however were never able to purge their powerful intelligence, which was mitigated by their passivity, as they were bred to accept their fate from the very beginning. However, it is very easy for a Jokari Sorceror to dreamwalk a Yahkuthein to awaken their innate desire for revenge, as there are no mental barriers for the Sorceror to overcome. They also have as a consequence of their increased BMI greater physical strength. Purified (Saruthein) The newest of the subspecies to emerge, the Purified were Defiled that were restored to a semblance of the original unmodified genome of the Untainted with a mix of cybernetics and psychic magicks. They mix the best traits of the two subspecies, and occasionalt, they regain their psychic ability, which is actually stronger than that of the Untainted on average. Sometimes, they are able to trace their lineage, which is how Karesan got his surname despite being a former Defiled. Only twelve Saruthein exist, and they are all generals for the Liberators. Category:Jokari Category:Voyages